


baby you’re like lightning in a bottle

by fakeheaux



Series: nor au [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, One Direction (Band), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Arcades, Cutesy, Domestic Avengers, First Dates, Fluff, I’m not even sorry, M/M, Mjolnir - Freeform, Not Canon Compliant, avengers themed video games, dudes winning prizes for their dates, messed up timelines, ship 1d with heroes 2k18, the return of mjolnir
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-17
Updated: 2018-08-17
Packaged: 2019-06-28 13:13:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,476
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15707943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fakeheaux/pseuds/fakeheaux
Summary: “I literally took a sword for you, and now you owe me big time.”The date is going well, in Thor’s opinion.or niall and thor go on their first official date





	baby you’re like lightning in a bottle

**Author's Note:**

> part two the ship no one asked for!!! i feel like i should explain the way i have the timeline set up for this, so here goes: this part and the part that came before it occur directly after thor ragnarok, but thor ragnarok does not occur directly before infinity war. thor met the guardians somewhere on the way to earth and he took a trip with rocket and groot to nidavellir to make stormbreaker, and then the asgardians got settled on an empty mountain in ohio. this is not...completely in keep with the comics, but they do make a new asgard somewhere rural in the comics, so it’s okay. cool.
> 
> thanks to steph, alex, and some well-timed posts on tumblr for inspiring this. check out the nor au tag on flickrseshions for more :)
> 
> title from the song electric love by bornes :)
> 
> unbeta’d so if you see a random black dot it’s my fault

“I literally took a sword for you, and now you owe me big time.”

Niall bursts into laughter, a staccato sound that doesn’t let itself get buried in the mess of noise that is the gaming hall Niall called an ‘arcade.’ His head is thrown back, his face is growing red, and he’s stumbling back as if his mirth is too much for his small Earthen body to handle.

The date is going well, in Thor’s opinion.

“You took a hit from a plastic sword a four year old was waving around, Thor, I don’t think it counts for much,” Niall laughs, wiping a tear from his eye.

Thor smirks. “Only in Midgard would such a noble sacrifice be met with such disrespect.” He breaks into a grin as Niall is overcome with laughter once more, pleased. He knows humor is slightly different on Midgard than it is on any other planet, but it’s still astounding just how funny Niall thinks everything is. He hasn’t stopped laughing since Thor picked him up in Stark’s car, practically. He points at Niall, feigning insult. “You shall pay for the disrespect you’ve shown my noble deed through battle,” he says seriously, ignoring Niall’s braying laughter. He’s bent almost in half, now. “Prepare yourself for a glorious defeat, Sir Niall Horan of Midgard, in the most humbling of wars: air hockey.”

Niall disappears completely from view, doubling over so far he’s hidden behind the table, but Thor can still hear him laughing. Other patrons of the gaming hall are beginning to stare but Niall pays them no attention, grabbing onto the edge of the table for support.

“I’m gonna kick your arse, Lord of Thunder,” Niall says through his laughter, wiping his eye with the back of his hand. He grabs his weapon, a meager handle-type thing made of some tough material, and Thor grabs his own matching one, every drop of amusement dripping away with the insult.

“I told you that in confidence, Niall,” Thor says, grim. “You’ve used my past shame against me, and now you shall pay.”

He quickly drops the plastic disc on the table, smacking it with his weapon and sending it straight into his goal. Niall gapes down at the table, and Thor grins, smug.

“Alright,” Niall says, adjusting his stance. “Prepare yourself for an arse beating the likes of which you’ve never seen, Thor.”

They play so ferociously that Thor forgets, for a moment, that this isn’t actually a battle but a game between friends. Well. More like soon to be lovers. Maybe. Thor will wait to see how this night goes.

In the end, Niall wins, but only by one point, and only because Thor accidentally scored on himself halfway into the game. If he hadn’t they’d be even, which is better than losing. Which he technically didn’t do, but Niall is so happy with himself that Thor might just let it slide. Just this once, though.

Grinning, Niall collects his small paper rewards as they slide out of the side of table. He notices Thor giving them a strange look and smiles, holding them up.

“Tickets,” he explains. “Every time you win one of the games you get tickets, and when you’re done you can take ‘em to the gift shop and redeem them for a toy or some candy or something.” He shrugs, folding them up meticulously and sliding them into his pocket. “I suppose it’s sort of childish, but I haven’t been to an arcade in years, so.”

Thor shakes his head, disagreeing. “It’s not childish at all. Childish would be claiming that you won a battle when really you and your opponent were tied.”

Laughing, Niall gives Thor a light shove. “Come off it; it’s not my fault you scored on yourself. Wait.” He pushes Thor again, harder. Thor smiles to himself, pleased when he doesn’t move so much as an inch. “No way,” Niall laughs. “Even Bressie moves when I push him and he’s as big as you are!”

“Is Bressie a god?” Thor asks, still not moving as Niall digs his shoulder into his back, trying to shove him forward. Niall grunts out a ‘no.’ “Well there’s your answer.” He sighs, pretending to be completely unbothered by the mention of this Bressie. “Although if it’s a man you can push around that you want, I could always just—” he tips forward as Niall gives him another mighty shove. Niall cries out, hands scrambling to grab onto the material of his shirt. As if he could possibly hold onto Thor’s dead weight. His intentions are admirable, of course, but so, so futile.

“ _Why_ would you do that?” Niall cries, laughing anxiously. His ears are growing pink, and he glances around. “You’re gonna get us kicked out before I can redeem my tickets.”

Grinning, Thor opens his mouth to answer, but he notices movement in the corner of his eye. When he turns there’s a young woman about Niall’s age, maybe younger, standing next to them looking nervous. He turns to his smile to her instead, and her cheeks go bright red.

“I’m so sorry,” she stammers, holding out her phone. She turns to Niall. “Could I get a picture, please?”

Niall’s own happy expression dims down to something a bit more guarded as he nods. “Of course, love.” He takes the phone from her, then glances at Thor. “Do you mind?”

“Of course not,” Thor says, taking the phone. “Er, I press the white circle, right?” He looks to the girl, who nods confusedly. He shrugs, smiling as he lifts up the phone. “I’m not well versed in Midgardian technology, you’ll have to forgive me. Smile!”

They both do as he says, the girl with a bright and Niall with a much more subdued expression. As Thor hands the phone back to the girl, she squints at him curiously.

“Aren’t you one of the Avengers?” she asks.

Grimacing, Thor glances awkwardly at Niall. “Er, no. We broke up while I was in space, apparently. I _was_ an Avenger, but now I’m more of a Revenger.”

The girls frowns. “A Revenger?” she asks.

Thor shrugs again. “You know, Sakaar’s mightiest heroes type thing.” The girls shakes her head, still confused, and Thor waves a hand, placing to other on Niall’s shoulders and turning him away. “It’s nothing, don’t worry about it. Have a lovely day!”

Niall stutters out a laugh, shaking his head as Thor steers him to another game. Something with a screen. He’s good at those.

“How many times have you had to explain that since you came back, then?” he asks, grinning back at Thor.

Shrugging, Thor sets sight on a machine with a Chitauri painted on the side. “Not a lot. People don’t actually care about the Avengers anymore; they just want to know about Captain Rogers and where he is and who’s going to bring him in so he can be arrested and whatnot. Trivial stuff, you know.” He punches a button on the machine, but nothing happens. The screen continues to play it’s weird little video. “Why isn’t this working.”

Smiling, Niall digs into his pocket and pulls out a coin. Oh. Right. Thor had forgotten about those. He watches curiously as Niall inserts a couple of the coins into a slot. The game starts up, prompting them to choose an Avenger to play as.

“I call Thor!” Niall shouts, rushing to press a few of the buttons. Thor frowns.

“Who am I supposed to be, then? Hawkeye?” He snorts. “Useless Avenger, they should call him.” Pouting, he scrolls through the Avengers until he lands on Hulk. It’s not _really_ a bother that Niall picked him. Thor was going to choose Hulk anyway, and it’s a compliment that Niall would choose him to be his player.

Laughing, Niall starts up the game, quickly reading through the instructions. “I actually quite like Hawkeye,” he says. “I read some of his file from when S.H.I.E.L.D. collapsed; it was pretty interesting.” He smiles over at Thor. “Bit of an inspiration, in’e?”

Frowning, Thor prompts the game to start. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Niall shrugs, focus on the screen. “Shows we don’t all need to be geniuses or, you know, _gods_ from outer space to be a hero. Hawkeye’s the only one who trained the normal way to get to where he is. Captain America and Hulk were experimented on, Iron Man is a genius inventor, and Black Widow was...what was it called, um—“

“The Red Room?” Thor suggests. Niall grins, nodding.

“Yeah, the Red Room, they trained Black Widow by using, you know, _torture_ , so,” Niall shrugs again, wincing when his screen goes red, signaling that his player has been hit. “Hawkeye was the only one who didn’t have some crazy beginning. If he wasn’t an Avenger he’d probably be an Olympian or some shite.”

Thor laughs, shaking his head. He’s got more points than Niall, so far, but it’s only because he’s played this game before. Valkyrie loves Midgardian video games.

“You know, Agent Barton was raised in a circus,” he says. Niall gapes at him for a second, cursing when his screen goes red again and focusing on the game once more. “Yes, he told us all about it. His father was abusive, and so he and his older brother ran away and were picked up by a circus runner. Or something, I’m not quite sure.” He shrugs. “Anyways, he was trained there using...abnormal methods. So really, even if he is the _most_ normal, he’s not _completely_ normal. Ha! I win!” Thor raises his arms in victory, grinning down at Niall, who just shakes his head and laughs.

“No way,” he says, pointing to the screen. “You cheated, look!” But when Thor does so, he snatches the tickets out of the machine and runs, cackling.

“Hey!” Thor shouts, running after him.

He catches up to Niall eventually, but not before they do get in trouble. But then Thor bribes the owner of the owner of the arcade with a personal tour of the Avengers headquarters, and Niall signs his phone case, so they get away with it.

 

-

 

“I don’t actually think Hawkeye is useless, you know,” Thor comments as they wait in line. After spending the entire day in the arcade, Niall had finally decided they had enough tickets for the prize he was intent on getting. Thor is just here to spend time with Niall, really; he’s happy either way.

Laughing, Niall looks up at Thor. “Yeah, I know.” He shrugs when Thor frowns down at him. “You’re too nice to say anything like that and mean it. I mean, you said you called Hulk the stupid Avenger and then took it back like two minutes later.” He laughs, shrugging again. “You’re a good man, Thor, come on.”

Pleased, Thor hums, holding onto his wrist behind his back. They’re silent for a moment, but it’s a comfortable silence, and Thor finds himself smiling at nothing. To distract himself, he looks around the room they’re in. It’s full of prizes; stuffed animals, toys, plastic weapons, Avenger memorabilia. Thor’s eye catches on a replica of his hammer. It’s impressive; it’s not made of plastic like most of the things here, but of what looks like metal, with a leather grip wrapped around the handle. The spell his father had placed on the original Mjolnir is written on one side of the hammer—which he doesn’t recall telling anyone, but alright—and on the other side is the trinity knot from Asgard. His gaze slides down a few inches to the sign with its worth, and his eyes narrow.

“Niall?” he asks slowly.

“Yes, Thor?” Niall asks, matching his tone. He’s attempting to hold back a grin, and won’t meet Thor’s eyes.

“How many tickets did we win?” Thor asks, eyes narrowing further.

A grin breaks out onto Niall’s face in full force, and Thor is struck by how beautiful his smile is. “Well, Thor, when I pooled both our earning together, we won three hundred thousand and sixty two tickets.” His eyebrows bounce, and he smirks up at Thor, pleased. “Just enough to get you your Mjolnir back.”

Thor grins, then breaks out into a laugh, rubbing his eyes. “You are truly spectacular, Niall Horan,” he says. “Did you know that this was here?”

“Yup,” Niall says happily. He’s bouncing on his toes, so filled with glee. “I came early because I wanted to pick something out for you before we started with any games, and the first thing I saw was the hammer.” He shrugs. “I figured, you know, even if you haven’t got it for real, there’s no reason you can’t have a nice tangible memory of it. It’s like, you know, with my awards and stuff.” His cheeks grow pink. “For like...my music, you know?”

They creep forward in line, and Thor slings an arm around Niall’s shoulder. “You’re very kind, Niall, but I have Stormbreaker, now. And there are plenty of videos and pictures of me wielding Mjolnir, so I don’t need to rely only on my memories of it.”

Brows raised, Niall looks up at Thor. “So I can get the Iron Man mask instead? I don’t have to get you the hammer?”

“What are you talking about, of course we’re getting the hammer,” Thor says, and pushes Niall up to the counter. He points to the replica of Mjolnir. “That, please.”

The young man behind the counter raises his brows, unimpressed. “That’s worth three hundred thousand, dude.”

“Three hundred thousand which we have,” Thor says smugly, plucking the piece of paper with the total amount of tickets on it out of Niall’s hand. “Here you go, my fine young man.”

The man’s expression falls, and he gapes down at the paper. “Oh. Alright, then. Uh, sure, if you could just sign the receipt; all the bigger prizes require it.”

They take turns with the pen, signing the paper. Niall gnaws on one of his nails, a small smile on his face, and he pulls out his phone, taking a picture of the paper. He looks up, catching Thor staring at him.

“What?” he asks defensively. “It’s our first date, we need to remember it somehow.”

They both turn back to the young man as he heaved the hammer onto the counter. “Sorry, it’s just really heavy. It comes with a box, just give me a sec.” He disappears behind the counter, and Thor picks the hammer up with ease. It sends a rush of nostalgia through him, and he half expects to hear the boom of thunder outside.

“Is this not enough to remember this date by?” he asks, waving the hammer at Niall.

Laughing, Niall takes the box the young man hands him and ducks out from underneath Thor’s arm. “It is, yeah, but it’s for you; I need something that I can keep.”

“You’re not keeping it?” Thor asks, surprised. “You earned most of the tickets today; it’s yours by right.”

“Yes, but I did it for you,” Niall says. Thor squints at him, puzzled, and Niall laughs, explaining, “It’s like, say you go to war or something, right. And after you’ve won, you pick up the shield of one of your enemies. What’s one, the uh, the Korg, right? You fought a Korg once, I think you mentioned it. Anyway, says you beat a Korg, and you take its shield whatever and take it back to Asgard and you give it to a girl you really like. You’ve done that before, right?”

Thor squints, thinking. “No, I don’t believe I ever did. Maybe for my mother or father, once, but never for a woman. The only Asgardian woman I ever felt anything for was Lady Sif, but then I met Jane, and I didn’t get the chance to bring her any spoils of war. After Jane there may have been a chance for something with Valkyrie, but then I met you. Although I do understand the point you’re trying to make. That’s very kind of you, Niall.” He takes the box from Niall and opens it, sliding the hammer into a foamy casing. “But I do believe you should keep it.”

Smiling, Niall rolls his eyes. “If you insist, Lord of Thunder. But I’m not carrying that thing; I’ve got twigs for arms. These’re made for holding guitars, not hammers made for gods.”

“Replicas of hammers made for gods,” Thor corrects.

Niall laughs. “Alright, then.”

 

-

 

Niall lets Thor into his hotel room, claiming that it will only be for a nightcap since Thor’s own room is so close. When Thor had told Niall of Stark reserving a room for Thor in the same hotel, only a floor above Niall’s, he didn’t believe it would be used against him in this way. What if Niall truly does only want a nightcap? Stark had told him when he first came to Midgard that nightcaps were supposed to be an invitation for a night of inappropriate behavior.

Stark wouldn’t even tell him what the inappropriate behavior was. If Niall asked Thor to commit a crime then Thor would be very disappointed in him.

“You could just set that on the desk,” Niall says, gesturing with his hand as he toes off his boots. “I’ll probably have it sent home sometime this week.”

Thor does as he says, frowning. “What do you mean?”

Niall shrugs, kicking at his boots so they line up against the wall neatly. “I’ll take it to the post so they can have it mailed to my house in London, is all. That’s how I’ve got to do it every time I buy something too big to carry around on tour, otherwise we end up coming home with twice as much stuff as we left with. It’s just easier.”

Humming, Thor nods. “That’s a valid reason, I guess.”

He walks around the room, inspecting it. It’s almost the exact same setup and design as Thor’s room, only Niall has set his things up for his stay, which is longer than Thor’s. Niall has a suitcase flipped open on the couch, half empty, the other half hanging neatly in the closet. Thor can see into the bathroom through the open door, where there’s an array of products sitting neatly around the sink. There’s even a cup with a toothbrush in it. Niall quite obviously lets himself get settled in when he’s staying in a hotel for longer than a night. It’s endearing; even when they were still centered in the tower Thor had barely made it feel as personal as this. Most of his things were at Jane’s apartment; he’d seen no reason to move it all to the tower, even if he was spending most of his time there.

When he turns, Niall is sitting on the bed, staring at him. There’s a curious smile on his face, and Thor stares back pensively.

“There is no nightcap, is there?” he asks quietly. Niall shrugs, blood rushing to his cheeks.

“Not unless you want there to be,” he answers. He scratches at the back of his head awkwardly. “It might be a bit forward, but I had a great time, and I think I’m about right when I say we’re gonna do it again. Not like, the arcade but a date, you know.” He shrugs again. “Nightcap was kind of a euphemism, to be honest.”

Smirking, Thor shrugs off his blazer, draping it over the back the couch. “You know I was once called criminally seductive?” he says casually.

Niall laughs, his face flushing a deeper pink. “Were you now?” He runs a hand through his hair. “That sounds like quite the story.”

“Oh it is,” Thor assures him, slipping his shoes off. “I suppose I should tell you all about it, but it’s from my past, you know.”

“Yeah, quite the trouble past you’ve got,” Niall says, still laughing. “Would you get over here already?”

Thor makes a face, pretending to consider. “Maybe. But only if you promise me to keep the hammer while you continue your travels. So you can have a tangible memory of me while we’re apart.”

Niall sighs deeply, as if the thought itself is too exhausting. “If I must.”

“Perfect,” Thor says, grinning smugly. “Now, prepare yourself. You’re about to be seduced by the _G_ _od_ of Thunder. It may be too much for your tiny mortal mind to handle.”

Smirking, Niall spreads his legs where he’s sitting on the bed. “Try me.”

 _Impressive_ , Thor thinks. He takes a step forward, grunting in surprise when he trips over his shoe. Niall bursts into laughter as he rights himself, tipping backwards on the bed.

Well. At least Thor has set the bar low from the beginning. Things will only improve from here.


End file.
